Book Reviews
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1962.tb01116.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1962 |
| Date | 01 March 1962 |
Book
Reviews
Administrative Tribunals in the Public Service
By Vincent Grogan. Institute
of
Public Administration, Dublin.
Pp,
76.
12s.
6d.
This is
a
brief survey
of
administrative
jurisdiction in the Republic of Ireland
which should be interesting to English-
men both because
of
the similarities
and the differences in what is por-
trayed. Some important differences
flow
from the existence of the Irish
Constitution. In the
first
place, Article
34 places some limitation on the
creation of tribunals by providing that
justice shall be administered in
courfs
by judges-though Article
37
allows
that persons not appointed as judges
in the manner
laid
down in the
constitution may be given by law
adj udicatory powers provided that
they are not in criminal matters and
that they are ‘limited’. Keither quali-
fication is clear. ‘Limited’ does not
appear
to
mean ‘limited in scope’ in
the sense
of
‘precisely defined’ but
‘limited in importance’. Whatever it
means it has not worked
so
as
to
prevent the setting up
of
administra-
tive tribunals
of
the familiar pattern.
The other major difference flowing
from the constitution is that the
complete ousting
of
judicial review
of
tribunal activities is unconstitutional
in that
the
High Court is invested with
the power to determine
all
questions of
fact and law arising in the exercise
of
judicial functions.
The impact
of
these constitutional
limitations
on
executive discretion
depends, of course, upon the familiar
qucstions ‘What is
a
judicial function?’
and ‘How can one tell, when an
administrator has Imn given an issue
to determine, whether it will be held
to
be
“judicial”?’ These questions
arise
at
the very beginning
of
Mr
Grogan’s survey. The title may mislead
British readers slightly since
it
mentions only ‘tribunals’, but the
opening sections make clear
that
the
term is here used to cover also some
types of decision which in this country
would be more readily classified
as
‘inquiries’. The category
of
case in
which
a
minister
has
appellate powers
given to him
of
a
kind which justify
treating him as
a
‘tribunal’ is difficult
to define. Mr Grogan attempts valiantly
to isolate in one chapter
the
‘judicial
functions
of
ministers’
-
i.e. those
decisions where the law has laid down
fairly full criteria which the minister
must apply to the exclusion
of
all
others when hearing an ‘appeal’.
Rut
some
of
the cases described in this
chapter seem hardly
to
fit
the category
at
all.
Under the Seed Production Act
and various marketing Acts, for
example, the minister is directed to
have regard to certain matters in
registering producers and cancelling
licences, but since in these cases
inquiries are held
on
the minister’s
behalf and since he may in some
of
them neither be bound
by
the report
submitted nor be compelled to disclose
it, it seems doubtful whether the
decision is best considered
as
a
judicial
one. These points, conceptual and
academic though they sound, become
points
of
substance where
so
much of
the law
of
judicial review
by
preroga-
I01
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